No flowers, just hits for IronPigs in May

June 09, 2012|Jeff Schuler

Back in the season's first month it was tough to use the words "clutch" and "hitting" in the same sentence about the IronPigs, even as they got off to the best start in franchise history and one of the best starts ever by a Phillies Triple-A affiliate.

At the end of April they were 11th in the International League in hitting with runners in scoring position with a .211 mark, and 12th in hitting in those situations with two outs (.174) . Overall they were next-to-last in hitting (.231), next to last in runs scored (83), last in on-base percentage (.300) and next-to-last in slugging percentage (.330).

May, however, was a different story.

Their .261 average matched Pawtucket for the second-highest in the league for the month, a point behind Syracuse. Their .396 slugging percentage matched Syracuse for second-best in the month behind Pawtucket (.411). Their .312 on-base percentage, a product of being last in the league in walks drawn, was still close to the bottom, and their 115 runs scored was also closer to the bottom of the league ((tied for ninth) than the top.

But they hit .281 with runners at scoring position in May (throw in the numbers for the first week of June, and it's a sizzling .317, 100-for-315), and .326 (43-for-132) with RISP and two outs. They now sit at third in the league with RISP (.277) and second with RISP and two outs (.260).

Those numbers added up to 17 wins in May, second only to Pawtucket's 18, and with five wins in their first seven games in May the IronPigs headed to Syracuse Saturday morning with the league's third-best record — 35-26.

"April's tough," veteran Tug Hulett, who has hit safely in every start he's made during two stints with the ironPigs, said last week. "It's cold up here in the North, you're playing a lot of Northern Division teams — Pawtucket, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo — and it's no fun to hit there. Guys get jammed, it's 40 degrees. Now the weather's heating up, and we've got a lot of veteran guys who know how to hit, know what they're doing."

As of Saturday morning, the IronPigs were sixth in the league with a .256 average (Pawtucket leads with a .271 mark) and they've inched their way up to 10th in runs with 238 by averaging 5.7 runs a game since May 1. They've never finished higher than ninth in the league in batting in their first five seasons.

They are up to seventh in the league in slugging with a .377 mark (Pawtucket is first at .438) and are eighth in OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) with a . 692 mark, up from 651 after April.

"That's what I'm talking about," IronPigs manager Ryne Sandberg said. "From where we were, to see that steady improvement, the offense has really made a steady climb the last few weeks. Guys are swinging the bats well, and the crooked numbers and the rallies have been there."

"There's a lot of guys who just need at-bats [early in the season]," said hitting coach Sal Rende. "Normally, I don't concern myself with how a guy's doing until he gets 100 or so at-bats; no matter what we do in spring training, they've just got to have regular game situations and sort of work their way into it."

A few breaks now and then doesn't hurt either, Kevin Frandsen added.

"We're getting some cheap knocks when we need to," said Frandsen, who hit .308 in May after hitting .194 in April. "The first month, you can say lack of offense production-wise, but there was no lack of quality at-bats. For the most part I just feel like we're getting some breaks, breaks that we've earned by having quality at-bat after quality at-bat."

"I don't know a lot about hitting, to tell you the truth, but it looks to me like they're just staying consistent with their approach, putting together good at-bats," pitcher Scott Elarton said. "And when you do that, eventually, good is going to happen."

One of the biggest keys to the offensive surge, Rende said, is the IronPigs' ability to put the bat on the ball. Entering Saturday's game they had struck out only 353 times, the lowest number by far in the league (Syracuse was next with 393, and Norfolk was at the top with 504).

"It's obvious we don't have a big team that's going to bash the ball all over the park, so we have to take advantage of the situations," Rende said. "We don't strike out that much and chances are we're going to put the ball in play and see what happens. Hopefully they continue to have some good at-bats and string more than one run in an inning; obviously, those innings are nice to see, when you can string some at-bats with some walks and some things together."

That's where the clutch hitting comes in, and you don't have to look any further than this last IronPigs surge for proof. They've hit .374 with runners in scoring position over their last nine games, and it's no coincidence that they've won seven of those games while averaging 6.7 runs a game.